CERN chief to give Dublin talk on Higgs boson

The head of CERN, Rolf-Dieter Heuer, will be in Dublin on 14 July to talk about the recent successes in the search for the Higgs boson particle.

He is just one of the many top scientists who will be coming to Ireland for the Euroscience Open Forum (ESOF 2012).

Earlier the same day, a panel of researchers will present the latest news and images from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN.

Stephen Myers, the scientist in charge of its massive accelerator rings, will explain how the LHC creates colossal energies to recreate the conditions of the Big Bang.

ESOF 2012 takes place as part of Dublin’s year as City of Science. It’s the largest science event of its kind in Europe, and Professor Patrick Cunningham, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser and chair of ESOF 2012, describes it as “the Olympics of science”.

Over 5,000 delegates will be attending the gathering of Nobel laureates, researchers, policy makers and business leaders. Among the other speakers at ESOF 2012:

Nobel winner James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, will be in conversation with TCD immunologist Luke O’Neill

J. Craig Venter, a leading name in genomic research, will update Erwin Schrödinger’s “What is Life” lecture – an event in Dublin in 1943 that inspired the discovery of the structure of DNA

Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the Irish astronomer who discovered pulsars, will also give a keynote speech

Businessman, rock singer and political activist BobGeldof will deliver an address on “Making a Difference”

Charles Bolden from NASA will describe what to expect in the latest era of space exploration

The compere for the opening ceremony of the five-day conference at the Convention Centre Dublin on 11 July is Dara Ó Briain. Meanwhile Dublin City of Science will also be hosting a 10-day “Science in the City” festival from this Friday, 6 July, as part of ESOF 2012’s programme.